Nationwide — Actress Raven Symoné has made herself the center of attention again, and this time many viewers of ABC’s “The View” want her off the show.
Then in September, she was criticized for saying that she would never hire someone with a “ghetto” name. And now most recently, she has angered viewers by expressing support for Officer Ben Fields, the South Carolina policeman who recently violently arrested a female student at school after she refused to put her cell phone away.
Regarding the violent arrest, Symoné commented:
“I think it’s important that we all understand what happened and we don’t know everything. First, she was asked by multiple teachers to put her phone away or to leave the room. We don’t know if she popped off at the mouth. We don’t know what she said, but she did not get up. They called him as a last resort. He talked to her for 30 seconds and she still didn’t get up. She still didn’t put the phone away. You do not need to be manhandling a child that way but at the same time, kids, put your phones away.”
Because of these comments, an online petition was started to have her removed from the show, and already more than 130,000 people have signed it. It reads:
Raven Symone has been spouting her ignorant and self hating spiel on the view for Long enough, from stating that she wouldn’t hire somebody for having a ghetto name, to openly complaining about reverse racism, the final straw was her comment about the recent viral video of the school police officer assaulting the student, where Raven Symone said “get off your phone in school then”. African Americans and black people around the diaspora need a voice representative of their views and not a voice representative of what white people want us to say. We need strong black rolemodels in prominent positions on television an Raven Symone cannot provide that. That is why I ask that we petition to remove her from The View.
What do you think? Should Raven be fired from the show? Or is controversy a good thing sometimes?